Star Wars The Old Republic - Shadow of Revan

If they made the hard to get speeders provide anything other than a paint job (150% movement speed, etc.), the forums would explode.

There are very few, if any, difficulty based rewards in TOR that are anything beyond cosmetic. The only two that still have any rarity are the aforementioned tank mount, and the dwead'toof pet. Of course there's also the stupid Czerka box, but that's just the devs playing a joke on people.

This will change a bit in 2.0 since you won't be able to craft or buy into PvE BiS, so some of the more difficult things will carry tangible benefits moving forward.

And if you're still having trouble with HM LI and have to deal with pugs, just save yourself the agony and wait until 2.0. It's being nerfed into the ground from start to finish and will be on par with other basic HMs.

And if you're still having trouble with HM LI and have to deal with pugs, just save yourself the agony and wait until 2.0. It's being nerfed into the ground from start to finish and will be on par with other basic HMs.

Interesting, didn't know that. Not to mention you could always run it at 55, would probably make it a bit easier.

I think it's pretty cool that they're going to be offering Cartel Coins as a reward for Achievements. That's a pretty good incentive for doing them.

I did that with someone last night that picked up the Loyalty Chip. (I accidentally broke cc, once.) That was the first HM I have done. I pretty much passed on everything, or greeded. I chose need ONE time, and got the item, bracers.

Yeah, for me, too, FP's are not very productive in terms of getting loot, but I am going to do one every day, from now on. They're still a lot of fun, and I can learn more.

Maybe if a person passes on stuff, instead of choosing greed, the person may be more likely to get a need?

Maybe if a person passes on stuff, instead of choosing greed, the person may be more likely to get a need?

Nope, it's random rolls that will show up in your chat window. If one person clicks need, they get it, if more than one clicks need there is a roll and the highest number gets it. If nobody clicks need the same thing happens for greed. If everyone passes it does a roll for everyone and the highest there gets it. Standard practice is to need on the gear that is for your class/spec if it's an upgrade. You can greed on everything. I usually end up passing though unless it's something I have a use for since I assume other people probably need the credits more.

Ran through Section X dailies this morning, definitely good for Daily Comms. Up to 222 now. How good are the recruit PvP relics compared to the DG Relics that go for 300 comms? Wondering if my comms wouldn't be better spent elsewhere if those are really almost BiS...

Started HK-51 Quest line as well. Pretty cool so far, though I've only just left Belsavis for it. Will need to hit up the Foundry as well soon.

I don't remember what it is, exactly, but looking at this guide, I'm thinking it must be the "Component #6 (Weapon Component) – False Emperor normal mode", and it's in the "mission items" portion of my inventory.

At this point, I am in mostly farm mode, but for my last few 50's, this is what i've done:

1. Ignore storyline Ilum. The storyline, I find kind of generic.2. Pick up tionese gear/recruit gear ASAP. I usually pick up the War Hero main hand weapon since by that time, I have more than enough warzone comms from sub 50 PVP. This should be good enough to run most HM's if you know what you are doing. Especially easy if you have the capability of healing or tanking on your class (I usually buy the 200k in-field respec so I can swap between DPS and tank/healing as needed. 3. Farm black hole comms. This can be done by using random groupfinder once a day, and running the black hole and section X series once a week. Also, get in on guild (or even PUG) operations. The op weeklies (for killing the 1st 2 bosses in a given operation) give 10-15 black hole comms. You may occasionally get a few pcs of columni gear. Which is OK, but you will prob replace columni with either rakata or black hole eventually. Ops are fun because you can jaw w/ other guildies on voice chat. A bunch of them are repressed Singaporeans so it doesn't take much to get them to let loose

This will eventually get you rakata, and some black hole/campaign level gear which is the "average" high end stuff.

Of note, I HAVE heard they are converting all unconstructed rakata/columni tokens and black hole comms into "classic tokens" come April 9/14, which will be redeemable for Dread Guard gear.

Ran through Section X dailies this morning, definitely good for Daily Comms. Up to 222 now. How good are the recruit PvP relics compared to the DG Relics that go for 300 comms? Wondering if my comms wouldn't be better spent elsewhere if those are really almost BiS...

Started HK-51 Quest line as well. Pretty cool so far, though I've only just left Belsavis for it. Will need to hit up the Foundry as well soon.

I can't remember if you said you were tank, healer or dps, but it we are talking about pve, in general, dread relics are better. For dps the choice is clear - two dread guard relics are hands down best in slot. You take the click power relic plus the proc relic internal/elemental or energy/kinetic as appropriate for your class. For healers, it is the free heal relic + on use power relic.

The water gets muddier with tanks. Some prefer the constant added defense of the pvp relics, some prefer another click relic. Some shadows even take the free heal relic. Lot of variations there.

Ran through Section X dailies this morning, definitely good for Daily Comms. Up to 222 now. How good are the recruit PvP relics compared to the DG Relics that go for 300 comms? Wondering if my comms wouldn't be better spent elsewhere if those are really almost BiS...

Started HK-51 Quest line as well. Pretty cool so far, though I've only just left Belsavis for it. Will need to hit up the Foundry as well soon.

I can't remember if you said you were tank, healer or dps, but it we are talking about pve, in general, dread relics are better. For dps the choice is clear - two dread guard relics are hands down best in slot. You take the click power relic plus the proc relic internal/elemental or energy/kinetic as appropriate for your class. For healers, it is the free heal relic + on use power relic.

The water gets muddier with tanks. Some prefer the constant added defense of the pvp relics, some prefer another click relic. Some shadows even take the free heal relic. Lot of variations there.

For me, I prob would forget to click. I am out of keyboard hotkeys for sentinel anyway

For me, I prob would forget to click. I am out of keyboard hotkeys for sentinel anyway

You get used to it. The dg power relic is 350 power for 30 seconds. If you do the math, that can turn a columi geared character into a BH geared character with the click of a button. It is a big deal. It's better in almost every way - time averaged, if used on cooldown is basically as good as elite war hero. The difference being that you get to decide when you need that kick in the pants. If the fight has no burns, you use it as close to on cooldown as possible, fight mechanics permitting. In fights with burn phases, it's invaluable.

That being said, this is changing in just a couple days. On use, even the power relic for pve, are gone I believe. There is just another proc relic for power - so the best in slot pve gear is probably going to be to proc relics. A power proc and a damage proc relic.

--edit--I think I was wrong. I think there is still power relic clicky - at least according to dulfy there is.

The heroics 2+ can be soloed if you have better than tio. The other stuff is just a scavenger hunt on lower level planets - you will have no difficulty at all with that. You could probably do the h2's in tio if your class has a humanoid cc.

Yeah, not sure when they "turn on" the double XP though. Between 5am-6am this morning, it was still off.

brodie wrote:

I'm thinking about doing the HK-51 quest(s) this weekend... aside from the FPs, can the rest of it be soloed with decent gear?

If decently geared, it sounds like it's doable. I finished the first Heroic 2+ quest solo, the main fight involving an Elite and two Strongs. Dropped the Strongs first and then the Elite, wasn't too bad at all. Supposedly the next Heroic 2+ has a Champion boss that's a bit tougher, but from vids I've watched, seems doable. I'm a tank though with Quinn pretty well geared and keeps me healed pretty well. Other than that and the FPs, I think it's just locating the pieces out in the world on certain planets.

I'm thinking about doing the HK-51 quest(s) this weekend... aside from the FPs, can the rest of it be soloed with decent gear?

It's better to do the scavenger hunts in a group. When one person gets a hit within 20 meters, everyone can move to them to find it. When I did it on my trooper, I had gathered up a group as I went along. We then ran the flashpoints together to get those pieces.

Of note, I HAVE heard they are converting all unconstructed rakata/columni tokens and black hole comms into "classic tokens" come April 9/14, which will be redeemable for Dread Guard gear.

It's the 9th, it's all current endgame comms and tokens except dread guard. It's worth spending all the BH and daily comms you have before, because the campaign pieces are more expensive and not as good as a BH piece with one of the standalone campaign armorings. The daily comm conversion rate is also bad at 4 to 1. Letting your columi/rakata tokens might be worth it, but if you want armor that looks like that or the color crystals from those weapons, you should probably just turn them in.

It kind of is in fresh 50 gear, but once you get in 61s/63s you will be so high on the defense DR curve that 320 more points just gets you something like 2% more defense. The WH relics with static shield power will get you more mitigation than that 100% of the time, instead of in short bursts. On my PT tank I have 2 WH static shield relics, and a DG click power relic that I switch to when threat/DPS is more important than a little more mititgation.

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I think I was wrong. I think there is still power relic clicky - at least according to dulfy there is.

The PvE relics haven't changed, but the PvP static relics have gone away (from the next tier or gear, and WH will be unattainable).

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Yeah, not sure when they "turn on" the double XP though. Between 5am-6am this morning, it was still off.

As an aside, I really wish I could sit in on the round table discussions they have about class abilities. Particularly on the defensive side of the balancing coin.

For dps, in terms of offense, it's relatively easy in some sense. They all need to be able to produce roughly the same amount of dps (+- some percentage), and there is an obvious way to measure your success. You keep balancing to you get them close. Some do a little more, some do a little less, some are more mobile, some less, etc, but you still have a nice end target.

In terms of defense, you think it would be the same. They would try to measure up classes relative survivability, and adjust the defensive abilities and cooldowns as appropriate. But how do you factor in a cc's, mobility, damage mitigation and self heal? When you take a look at smugglers, they have 2 cc's. One for a droid, one for a human, which is also ooc. But he also has appalling defensive cooldowns. In a raid, those cc's are convenient for trash, but they won't help you much in a boss fight. Then you look at a sent or marauder, who can average heavy armor levels of DR if they are taking damage regularly. They have an invincible button, and a stealth out of combat. Sure there are some downsides to the invincible button - but it would be hard to argue that his defensive cooldowns aren't superior.

Which brings me to the Powertech/Vanguard. No cc. One 2.5 second crowd control (at least the jk is 6 seconds, even if it is broken on damage). One couple second stun. No knockback. No closer (grapple is convenient for trash, but not useful for bosses). A heal me for 15% of me health over 10 seconds button (about a medkit), and 25% DR for 12 seconds. Both of which are on long cooldowns. The 25% DR is the only ability I would consider decent.

As a dpser, to say I feel frail as my heavy armor wearing powertech is an understatement. He is worse then my sage, which has so many resources at her disposal to self heal, take bubble damage, knockback, sprint, etc. He is worse than my scoundrel in many respects too. The scoundrel self heal is consistent, and while the defensive cooldowns suck, he can at least heal himself in a pinch. The knight has a knock back, a longer stun, a gap closer, and significantly stronger defensive cooldowns (which can be talented to be even better).

Also, why in the world does the powertech not have an aggro drop?! Almost every class has one, whether through stealth or a click.

It's funny because I mostly leveled my pt over the weekends. I didn't bother with any heroics really since they just slow down the xp in a lot of cases - gotta wait for people to form a group, speeder back, etc. So when I ran a few hm fp's just to get a feel for how pt's are endgame wise (hybrids hit like trucks - even in tio/columi you do a crap ton of damage) I just assumed that I had accidentally moved my aggro drop off the bar in one of my many, many respecs. Seems like a pretty amazing oversight. If you count stealth outs, which I do, every class has one aggro drop, some have 2!

It's funny because I mostly leveled my pt over the weekends. I didn't bother with any heroics really since they just slow down the xp in a lot of cases - gotta wait for people to form a group, speeder back, etc. So when I ran a few hm fp's just to get a feel for how pt's are endgame wise (hybrids hit like trucks - even in tio/columi you do a crap ton of damage) I just assumed that I had accidentally moved my aggro drop off the bar in one of my many, many respecs. Seems like a pretty amazing oversight. If you count stealth outs, which I do, every class has one aggro drop, some have 2!

Assassins, unless I am mistaken, only have stealthing to drop their threat which means there is one class that has two methods for dropping threat, the Operative. As a non-official representative of the class I have prepared a speech for the occasion where this is noticed: Suck it!

It's funny because I mostly leveled my pt over the weekends. I didn't bother with any heroics really since they just slow down the xp in a lot of cases - gotta wait for people to form a group, speeder back, etc. So when I ran a few hm fp's just to get a feel for how pt's are endgame wise (hybrids hit like trucks - even in tio/columi you do a crap ton of damage) I just assumed that I had accidentally moved my aggro drop off the bar in one of my many, many respecs. Seems like a pretty amazing oversight. If you count stealth outs, which I do, every class has one aggro drop, some have 2!

Originally, they considered all utility skills similar, and spread them around sparingly. I think partly that was to increase class differentiation, partially to encourage group diversity, and partially to keep the number of abilities manageable. In the last few major class changes they have basically "given up" on most of that (more likely, the people that held to that philosophy are no longer there), and given everyone almost all the utility abilities. On one hand, I think that's good, as it makes every class more viable and fun, on the other, it really increases the skill ceiling (so many abilities now, almost all specs got at least 2-4 more situational ones they need to use in 2.0) and runs the risk of having homogenous groups being best. If you take away most of the utility differences, then you are down to DPS as a differentiator, and there's always going to be one winner there. SWTOR is basically in the place WoW was a couple of expansion ago, where the skill ceiling is high, there's a ton of stuff to manage, and they are going to have to start deciding what to do going forward. WoW decided to simplify and strip things down, there aren't many classes that have more then four or five abilities in a rotation now, etc. I kind of hope SWTOR doesn't go that route, although they certainly can't keep adding more and more abilities.

It's the 9th, it's all current endgame comms and tokens except dread guard. It's worth spending all the BH and daily comms you have before, because the campaign pieces are more expensive and not as good as a BH piece with one of the standalone campaign armorings. The daily comm conversion rate is also bad at 4 to 1. Letting your columi/rakata tokens might be worth it, but if you want armor that looks like that or the color crystals from those weapons, you should probably just turn them in.

Would you elaborate on that, please, a lot. For instance, what little I can buy, I don't know what to buy. For instance, I was thinking about getting some relics, but is seems those are changing? (I think I prefer the passive over the click, also.)

Also, as mentioned earlier, I don't see how clicking on one relic can give a player a whole increase in an armor class. (From Col to DG.) A 'partial' 'upgrade' for 30 seconds, sure, I can see that.

I will elaborate on what I meant by increasing your effective armor class. The click relic does nothing for your actual armor rating, or your accuracy, crit rating, surge, etc. The only thing it will increase is your power. What I meant by that is that most to all (depending on class) of your dps is generated from special abilities. Specials abilities do damage that is increased directly by increasing a stat called bonus damage (both force/tech and melee/ranged). Your bonus damage rating is a combination of things, including how much main stat you have, how much power you have, and how much force/tech power you have (if it is a tech or force ability). Increasing your power by 350 will increase your bonus damage rating by 350*0.23 = 80.5.

Most tech and force abilities damage is guided by this bonus damage number. In general the damage from an special ability will be bonus damage * coefficient, where the coefficient varies from ability to ability. You can look up this coefficient on torhead or any other database crawl site. Those coefficients typically range from 1.5 to 2.5, depending on ability. So an increase in 80.5 bonus damage is between a 100-200 dps kick in the pants. It's effectively a 'class of armor jump' in terms of dps/healing.

Captainpuke, TY for further explaining. Until just yesterday, I was using the (L43) blue, click power, and click defense relics. I decided to just leave my recruit PvP relics in the slots.

Well, I have to post this:I played my L29 Sorcerer in PvP earlier. I played twice. My second time playing I got one MVP vote. Heh heh. OK, for most of you, that is laughable. But, for me, I thought it was pretty darn good.

Unfortunately, I now have to re-figure how I play, such as changing key binds. Yuck! (Yeah, I am going to be playing a lot of PvP! It was FUN!)

Just to be clear, under level 50 for PvP, it does me no good to use anything with expertise, right?

Just to be clear, under level 50 for PvP, it does me no good to use anything with expertise, right?

Expertise does help for pvp at any level, but below 50 you need to buy PVP weapons and pull enhancements out to swap around to get it, so unless you're PVPing a ton (like leveling mostly from warzones) it won't be a major point of concern.